Each summer a player participates in Minnesota Hockey/Reebok’s High Performance Program.  The program separates players into three groups based on age (15, 16, or 17).  Each age group is called either HP-15, HP-16, or HP-17.  Each player then takes part in a selection process that takes place from March to June every year.  The process is geared to select 20 or so of the top players to attend a USA Hockey national camp in July.  If selected, a player spends a week in New York and returns.  What happens next?

This year, from March 2014 to June 2014, approximately 560 hockey players made 28 High Performance Festival teams and played in one of three HP Festival Tourneys.  For the HP-16/HP-17 players, 54 each were selected to play in a second HP Festival Tourney called the Final 54.  Twenty or so players were selected in each age group and attended a USA Hockey Camp the first week of July; 100 or so players were selected out of the HP-15 Festival to attend a camp in St. Cloud with twenty or so players selected to attend a national camp the third week in July.

At the national camps, the Minnesota players represented USA Hockey’s Minnesota District and were evaluated along with selectees from USA Hockey’s other eleven districts.  All have returned and as a result, there is movement among those players that played in the Minnesota Hockey/Reebok’s HP program.

So who is playing USA Hockey?

For USA Hockey, there are reasons for the whole process to be completed by the end of July.  USA Hockey sends teams to international tourneys starting in August.  In less than two weeks, a USA U17 team will be playing in a tourney in Germany; a USA U18 team will be playing in a tourney in the Czech Republic; and this week tryouts are being held in New York for USA Hockey’s USA National Junior team in preparation for the World Junior Championships at the end of this year in Canada.  For the HP-15 players, some as a result of their evaluation get asked to participate in further evaluations usually held in March the following year.  Some of the HP-15 players get offers to attend the National Team Development Program (for one or two years) the following season (2015-2016 for those players in the HP program this year).  

USA U17 Select Team for Five Nations Tourney

This team is dominated by Minnesota players.  Nine Minnesotans were selected by USA Hockey to play on the USA U17 team at the August’s Five Nations Tourney played in Germany (five forwards, two defensemen, and two goaltenders).

Two of the five forwards are Edina players, Kieffer Bellows and Garrett Wait.  Both played on the Edina Association’s 2013 State Bantam AA Championship team and 2011 State Peewee A Championship team.  Both players played on the Edina High School team that won Minnesota’s Class AA title last March.  Mitchell Mattson played last season for Grand Rapids.  Riley Tufte played last season for Blaine High School and Mark Senden, Wayzata High School’s #4 scorer last season, complete the five.

Sam Rossini/Burnsville and Matthew Kiersted/Elk River were the two defensemen selected.  Both goaltenders are well known to YHH readers; Ryan Edquist/Shattuck and Lakeville North and Dayton Rasmussen/Holy Family.  The Five Nation Tourney (USA, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, and Slovakia) will be played August 13-17 in Crimmitschau, Germany.  Last year, the USA team won the tourney beating Slovakia 3-1 in the championship game.  Brock Boesser/Burnsville was the only Minnesota player on the 2013 team.

USA National Team for World Junior Championships

Five defensemen from Minnesota (Mike Brodzinski/Ham Lake, Ryan Collins/Bloomington, Jack Doughtery/Cottage Grove, Clint Lewis/Burnsville, and Tommy Vannelli/Minnetonka) will be among fourteen defensemen trying out for the USA National Team that will play in the World Junior Championships held Dec. 26, 2014-Jan. 5, 2015, in Toronto and Montreal, Canada.  The five will participate in an USA Hockey sponsored evaluation camp August 2-9 held in Lake Placid NY.  Six forwards from Minnesota (Taylor Cammarata/Plymouth, Austin Poganski/St. Cloud, Hudson Fasching/Burnsville, Connor Hurley/Eagan, Keegan Iverson/St. Louis Park, and Vinni Lettieri/Excelsior) will be among the twenty four forwards trying out at the same evaluation camp.  Cammarata and Fasching played last season for the Minnesota Gophers.  No goalies from Minnesota made the tryouts this year.  Fasching and Cammarata made the 2013 team.

Note: In the first day of the tryouts, the Blue team (with most of the Minnesota forwards) beat the White team 5-2.  Sunday and Monday, the two teams play teams from Sweden and Finland.

USA U18 Select Team for Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup

Three Minnesota players have made the USA U18 Select Team that will play in the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup; forwards Brock Boeser/Burnsville and Nicholas Swaney/Lakeville South and defenseman Jacob Olson/Woodbury will travel Breclav, Czech Republic and Piestany, Slovakia to play games August 9-13.  U18 teams from Slovakia, Czech Republic, Russia, and Finland are entered.

USA Hockey U17 Team Commits (2014-2015)

As of the end of July, 12 forwards, 8 defensemen, and two goalies have committed to play the 2014-2015 season on USA Hockey’s U17 team.  The 2014-2015 season begins in September 2014 and ends the first week of April 2015.  Last season, the U17’s finished with a 31-20-3 record.  Thirty five players touched the ice for the U17’s; 17 players suited for 45 or more of the 53 games played.  The U17 typically plays 55-60 games against opponents from the USHL, NAHL, and UMHSEL.  Last season, the U17 team played 14 games against international competition and won all 14 beating the Russian team twice and the Canadian Team once.  There were no Minnesota players on the U17 team.  This season four Minnesota players, defenseman Ryan Lindgren/Shattuck, goalie Jake Oettinger/Lakeville North, forward Joey Anderson/Hill-Murray and Roseville, defenseman Matt Hellickson/Rogers have committed to play on the U17 team.

Those that don’t make it to USA hockey

Playing on a USA team in an international tourney is a matter of personal pride.  Most players want to do that; but for those that do not end up in the NTDP program on the U17 or U18 team, they will usually play one or two seasons at junior hockey.  USA Hockey’s NTDP U17 and U18 teams play essentially the same junior hockey schedule.  The basic difference between the two NTDP teams is that the U18s will play NCAA Division I teams; the U17s do not.  Both teams play USHL and NAHL teams.

Almost all the top players in the HP program get invited to play in the Upper Midwest High School Elite League and most do.  The younger players tend to skate the following season for their high schools.  Some of the older players chose to skip their senior years to play USHL or NAHL hockey in an out of state environment (except for those that opt to play NAHL hockey with the Austin Bruins, the Minnesota Magicians, or the Minnesota Wilderness).  Another alternative is play Canadian junior hockey with the Minnesota Iron Rangers based out of Hoyt Lakes in the Arrowhead Country.

Some recent examples of players who had success going this route are forward Austin Poganski/St. Cloud Cathedral and goalie Chase Perry/Andover.  Poganski skipped his senior year at St. Cloud Cathedral (after leading the varsity in scoring for three years) and played for the USHL’s Tri-City Storm in 2013-2014.  He had a good season, was drafted by the St. Louis Blues in the 2014 NHL draft, and will play for North Dakota in 2014-2015. 

Chase Perry skipped his senior year at Andover, had a good season playing for the Wenatchee Wild in the North American Hockey League, and was picked by the Detroit Red Wings in the 2014 NHL draft.  Perry will play the 2014-2015 season for Colorado College.

So here are three players to watch next season that flew under the gun last season, Matt Colford/Breck and the Minnesota Magicians, Hunter Shepard/Grand Rapids, and Zach Driscoll/Eastview.  Colford led the Magicians in scoring last season and will be playing on a more veteran team this season especially with the addition of the Odessa Jackalops’ leading scorer from last season, Lukas Laub.  He will have opportunities this season to shine for the Magicians on a team that is likely to improve their overall record.

Shepard, this year’s Frank Brimsek award winner that goes to the outstanding senior goalie in MSHL play, joins USHL’s Lincoln Stars.  With last season’s starting goalie, Mike Bitzer/Moorhead playing for Bemidji in 2014-2015, the Stars have acquired Cameron Hackett in a trade (Hackett will be playing for Cornell in 2015-2016).  Shepard will be competing for playing time with Hackett and returning Stars’ goalie Jacob Nehama.

Driscoll has been a solid goaltender the past two seasons for the Eastview varsity and has opted to spend his senior year for the Austin Bruins, one of the top NAHL teams this past season.  The Bruins made it the NAHL playoff championships before losing to the Fairbanks Ice Dogs.  With most of their 2013-2014 team gone, the Bruins drafted Driscoll #1.  Driscoll will be following in the footsteps of Nick Lehr/Roseville who spent three seasons playing for the Bruins before joining the University of Minnesota next season.